Edward Uhl, Who Helped Invent Bazooka, Dies at 92

Edward G. Uhl, an aerospace executive who as a young soldier during World War II helped invent the bazooka, a devastatingly effective weapon against German tanks, died on May 9 in Easton, Md. He was 92.

Mr. Uhl died in an assisted-living facility, his son, Kim, said. Mr. Uhl had previously lived in Oxford, Md.

The bazooka, often called the stovepipe, was a shoulder-fired rocket launcher that could penetrate more than four inches of a tank’s armor plate. Eisenhower hailed it as one of the four “tools of victory” that won World War II.

After the war, Mr. Uhl climbed rapidly through the aerospace industry, becoming president and chief executive of Fairchild Industries in 1961, succeeding its founder, Sherman M. Fairchild. He became chairman in 1976.

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Mr. Uhl transformed Fairchild from an airplane producer into an aerospace powerhouse that also made missiles and satellites. Under him, Fairchild developed the A-10 Thunderbolt II close combat aircraft, known as the Warthog, which destroyed many Iraqi tanks during the Persian Gulf war.

He greatly expanded Fairchild’s capabilities and diversified its business, acquiring Hiller Aircraft, a helicopter manufacturer, and Republic Aviation, a military aircraft manufacturer based in Farmingdale, N.Y. He retired from Fairchild in 1985.

Edward George Uhl was born in Elizabeth, N.J., on March 24, 1918. He graduated from Lehigh University on an R.O.T.C. scholarship, majoring in engineering physics.

An enlistee, he served in the Army from 1941 to 1947, becoming a lieutenant colonel in its Ordnance Corps. There, along with Col. Leslie A. Skinner, he invented the bazooka, named after an improvised tubular musical instrument that the comedian Bob Burns had popularized. After a general tested a prototype bazooka in 1942 and hit his target, the Army rushed to order 5,000 bazooka launchers and 25,000 bazooka rockets.

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In developing the bazooka, Mr. Uhl wanted to figure out how a soldier could aim it and keep the burning powder from hurting the soldier’s face.

“One day I was walking by this scrap pile, and there was a tube that was five feet long and 60 millimeters in diameter, which happened to be the same size as the grenade that we were turning into a rocket,” Mr. Uhl told Maryland Cracker Barrel Magazine in 2007. “I said, ‘That’s the answer! Put the tube on a soldier’s shoulder with the rocket inside and away it goes.’ ”

After the war, he joined the Glenn L. Martin Company, leading its efforts to develop guided missiles. He was a close friend and hunting partner of Werner Von Braun, the rocket scientist, Kim Uhl said. From 1959 to 1961, Mr. Uhl was vice president for technical administration at Ryan Aeronautics.

Mr. Uhl married Maurine Keleher in 1943. She died in 1966. Later that year he married Mary Stuart Brugh.

Beside his wife and son Kim, of Washington, he is survived by another son, Scott, of Woodbine, Md.; a daughter, Cynthia Uhl, of Williamsburg, Va.; two stepsons, George and William Hatcher, both of Maryland; a sister, Elizabeth Kalmbach, of Malvern, Pa.; four grandchildren; and five stepgrandchildren.